Fraud

Evidence continues to mount that Google's management and supervision of its Android operating system is out-of-control when it comes to protecting privacy and security.

• Google's corporate ethos that it is better to "ask for forgiveness than permission" increasingly means Android has no privacy by design and hence less security for users by default.
• Requiring and respecting the need for permission and authorization is a bedrock truism of IT security -- and the evidence below increasingly indicates that Google has a deep aversion to that IT security truism.

Consider the growing pattern of Google's default design and behavior that maximizes collection of private information, which inherently puts users at greater security risk.

First, and profoundly disturbing, is a new TechRepublic revelation in a post by security blogger Donovan Colbert.

In setting up his new Android-based tablet, Mr. Colbert discovered that the Android operating system by default, i.e. without permission, automatically collected and implemented encrytion key passcodes to automatically gain access to private networks without the permission of the user. In Mr. Colbert's own words:

My new op-ed, "Google's Pirate Side" in the Daily Caller, about the Department of Justice's reported criminal investigation of Google's longstanding promotion of rogue pharmacy sales, despite repeated warnings from law enforcement, tells the story of how this Google scofflaw behavior is consistent with Google's pirate escapades in other areas.

• The Daily Caller op-ed is here.

Google's serial disrespect for people, privacy, property, and the rule of law are core themes of my new book: Search & Destroy Why You Can't Trust Google Inc.

• See www.SearchAndDestroyBook.com for the different ways you can buy the book.

Google's deep aversion to accountability was in full view in its blog response to the latest gmail security breach, in which Google placed most all of the blame on users and others, while largely trying to absolve Google of its responsibility and accountability in the matter as the world's largest source of private, sensitive and secret information.

Top 10 Reasons Google Has Culpability & Needs More Accountability:

My new Huffington Post op-ed: Big Brother Inc., tells the story of how Google has become a more intrusive and effective "Big Brother" than even George Orwell imagined in "Nineteen Eighty-Four."

• My Huff Post Tech post on the world's #1 blog shows how Google's 24-7-365 omni-tracking enables Google to know what you want, think, believe, say, read, write, watch, and intend to do.

Google's serial disrespect of privacy is a central theme of my new book: "Search & Destroy Why You Can't Trust Google Inc."

• See www.SearchAndDestroyBook.com for the different ways you can buy the book.

The widely reported DOJ criminal investigation into Google for promoting illegal pharmacy sales may be Google's most serious clash with Federal law enforcement to date; (even compared to Google's many previous run-ins with law enforcement chronicled in my recent Forbes op-ed.)

Why is this case is so serious?

First, this is a bonafide criminal probe involving Google promoting illegal drug sales, which could have put hundreds of thousands of U.S. consumers at serious risk of injury or death from counterfeit, harmful, or inappropriate-use drugs.

• This case involves more than fraudulent business behavior, it appears to involve criminal disregard for the health and safety of consumers for monetary gain.

Second, if reports are correct that this case also involved an official Google business decision in 2004 that Google, unlike other online advertisers, would continue to promote Canadian pharmacies that they and others knew sold drugs illegally to U.S. customers, then Google may have made a deliberate business decision to disregard the law.

My new Forbes' op-ed: Google Disregards the Law, tells the sordid story behind today's story of Google apparently agreeing to settle a criminal investigation with the Department of Justice for ~$500m for promoting and accepting advertising from illegal online pharmacies.

• The op-ed sadly chronicles that this latest law-breaking by Google is part of a well-established pattern of disregard for the rule of law.
• If one cannot trust a public Fortune 100 company to obey the law, one cannot trust them overall as I explain in much great detail in my new book "Search & Destroy Why You Can't Trust Google Inc."
  • See: www.SearchAndDestroyBook.com for the different ways you can buy the book.

My Network World interview with Ms. Smith, the Privacy and Security Fanatic, about: Search & Destroy Why you can't Trust Google, is here. The link to my book site is here.

I've long thought there was a big untold story about Google, essentially a book all about Google, but told from a user's perspective, rather than the well-worn path of Google books told largely from Google's own paternal perspective.

• (You can buy the book, Search & Destroy Why You Can't Trust Google Inc. at www.SearchAndDestroyBook.com, Telescope Books, Amazon, Kindle, Kindle Apps, Barnes & Noble, The Nook, and The Nook Apps.)

Given that Google is the most ubiquitous, powerful and disruptive company in the world, it seemed logical to me that users, and people affected by Google, had a lot of important and fundamental questions about Google that no book had ever tried to answer in a straightforward and well-defended manner.

The current media and Congressional interest in the new revelation that Google and Apple have collected WiFi location information has largely missed an exceptionally salient point -- Google and Apple have very different privacy track records stemming from their very different attitudes toward privacy.

Google Privacy Scandal #11:

The Wall Street Journal essentially confirmed the huge flaw in the FTC-Google privacy settlement that I recently spotlighted; see Julia Angwin's excellent privacy article: "Apple, Google Collect User Data."

The WSJ investigation confirmed the fact that Google (and Apple too) are tracking their mobile device users' movements and locations based on "unique device identifiers" without users' knowledge or authorization.

The confirmation of this fact, confirms my point that the FTC-Google privacy settlement has a huge loophole in that it does not include "unique device identifiers" to be private information, a ridiculous distinction because a "unique device identifier" is obviously as private as a name or IP address, which the FTC already considers "covered information." FYI: the proposed bipartisan Kerry-McCain privacy legislation considers "unique device identifiers" to be private information.

If the FTC is truly serious about enforcing its fair representation laws and sanctioning deceptive and unfair privacy practices when they find them, it should modify its draft privacy settlement with Google to include "unique device identifiers," as covered private information, in the final settlement with Google that soon will be codified by the court.